TJ Watt discusses stressful moments from Steelers plane's engine malfunction
TJ Watt detailed the moments inside an airplane as it made an emergency landing and what he was thinking. After playing the Las Vegas Raiders, the Pittsburgh Steelers were on the way back home. But they had to land in Kansas City due to the emerging situation.
The defensive mainstay went on to relay the experience, saying:
"Hearing 'Code Yellow, flight attendants you have prepared for this'. Everyone’s grabbing their seatbelts, it's not a fun feeling. It was a whole lot of Googling. I was on Reddit sites. I was just looking out for code yellow. Meant everything from oil leak to like some engine malfunction to some flaps of some sort."
He also said he found it a stressful situation. But he went to praise the calmess of the flight attendants, saying,
"So I was just holding my breath until we were on the ground. The attendant walked around swiftly because they don't want us to panic and they were not answering any questions of any sort."
TJ Watt also said that the reason he felt more sanguine was because they had all the high-paid executives on board the plane too. He reasoned that if they were there, probably the amount of precaution they were taking was high.
“I do have to admit it, I got some comfort in knowing I was on the flight with our team owner and a bunch of other multi-millionaires, so I knew they’d hopefully take every precaution known to man to get us down safely.”
Cam Heyward has a different theory to TJ Watt
Even though it was a scary moment, the incident served to bring the team closer as it served as a bonding opportunity. No one was hurt during what happened.
Cam Heyward put the blame squarely on Minkah Fitzpatrick for his earlier roughing the passer call. He engaged in some more banter, asking Taylor Swift or Travis Kelce to help them to get to Pittsburgh, since they had landed in Kansas City.
Ultimately, it was reported by multiple sources to be an oil pressure failure in one of the engines of the Airbus A330-900. Fire trucks were at the scene when they landed in Kansas City but were not needed. The flight crew and attendats acted professionally to ensure that this was no more than a minor blip in the Steelers' season, which now continues against the Houston Texans.